Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!sun-barr!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Self-Serving Beliefs Message-ID: Date: 18 Jan 90 05:05:05 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 42 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!bmers58!davem@watmath.waterloo.edu (Dave Mielke) writes: > >If, for example, a heavy object were to fall on my head, it >would induce significant pain. While this pain in and of itself is not >the consequence of sin, my ill-tempered response to it would be. I suppose you're right, that anger in response to such an incident would be sinful -- although I can think of worse sins :-) But I don't agree that the incident itself is not likely the result of sin. On the contrary, I think it probably is. And that says something about my theology, being an example of (somebody help me with the right technical term here!) the belief that Chrsitianity involves us in society. Why did that heavy object fall on your head? If somebody dropped it on you deliberately, of course that's sin. If they dropped it accidentally because Joe was lazy and got back late from coffee break and they didn't have enough help to move something that was too heavy for them, that's sin (on the part of Joe). If the object broke loose from the roof because the contractor skimped on proper mortar for construction of the building, that's sin (on the part of the contractor, or on the part of the building inspector, or on the part of society which refuses to hire enough building inspectors). If the object fell from an airplane because the government doesn't impose adequate safety standards on airplane mechanics, that's sin. If it fell during a building demolition job, landing on an area where you were standing in spite of large signs that said "Danger, Falling Objects", that's sin (on the part of you, for endangering God's creation and wasting police officers' time). If an unsupervised two-year-old dropped it down the stairs, that's sin (on the part of whoever should have been supervising the child). You get the picture. I believe that practically all suffering in the world is, in one way or another, the result of sin, positive or negative -- the things we have done that we ought not to have done, and the things we have not done that we ought to have done. CAR credmond@watmath